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We Need Sustainable Food Packaging Now.
Every day, hundreds of millions of single-use containers, cans, trays, and cutlery are thrown away around the world. While packaging is an essential component of the food sector and the only solution we have to facilitate food transportation, food packaging waste is also one of the most harmful aspects of this industry. We outline the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular materials used to wrap groceries and takeaway foods and explore innovative sustainable food packaging that could revolutionise the market and protect the environment. Get more news about Food Packaging,you can vist our website!
In ancient history, humans used to consume food from where it was found. There were no grocery shops, takeaway and delivery services, and almost no imports and exports of food on a global scale. But things changed rapidly in the 20th century. Suddenly, countries began shipping produce from one end of the world to the other; supermarkets in the US started selling Southeast Asian tropical fruits; China depended on Brazil for its soybean supplies; and European countries were importing coffee from Africa. The emergence and subsequent surge in international shipping of food staples led to a revolution in the packaging sector.
Since food needed to travel long distances to keep up with global demand, it became crucial to find ways to ensure food remained fresh and undamaged at the time of consumption. Packaging turned out to be the best way to extend food shelf-life as it retarded product deterioration, retained the beneficial effects, and maintained the nutritional values, characteristics, and appearance of foods for longer times.
Materials that have been traditionally used in food packaging include glass, metals (aluminium, foils and laminates, tinplate, and tin-free steel), paper, and paperboards. Plastic, by far the most common material used in food packaging today, is also the newest option. Since the plastic boom in the early 1980s, new varieties of this material have been introduced in both rigid and flexible forms, slowly replacing traditional materials due to their versatility, easy manufacturing process, and cheap price. Of all plastics produced worldwide today, nearly 40% are used for food and drink packaging.
But food retailers are not the only industry that contributed to the rapid acceleration in plastic and packaging production. Consumer habits changed drastically within the restaurant industry too. The first takeaway options were already available in the 1920s, but it was not until after World War II that consumers started appreciating the convenience of drive-throughs and other take-home options. In America, fast food chains such as In-N-Out Burger and McDonald’s were responsible for the industry’s boom and with the expansion of the transportation industry, delivery options also began expanding around the world. This inevitably led to a massive influx of food packaging solutions that allowed consumers to pick up pre-cooked dishes and consume them elsewhere.
Most of the containers that we have today are single-use, non-compostable, and difficult to degrade because of food contamination. Both the restaurant and retail industries are major contributors of food packaging waste. Finding a balance between food protection and environmental consciousness undoubtedly requires huge efforts. Given the increasing consumer (and manufacturer) awareness of the environmental and health impacts of non-degradable packaging, in recent years the packaging industry has been seriously looking at alternative, more environmentally friendly materials as well as ways to reduce packaging where it is not absolutely necessary. Restaurants, in particular, have seen sustainable packaging options widely expanded to include compostable and recyclable packaging. According to Globe News Wire, the biodegradable packaging market will reach a value of USD$126.85 billion by 2026.
Food-packaging system reduces health risks and saves food
As food costs continue to rise and a global food crisis looms on the horizon, it’s staggering to think that some 30-40% of America’s food supply ends up in landfills, mostly due to spoilage. At the same time, the World Health Organization estimates that foodborne illness from microbial contamination causes about 420,000 deaths per year worldwide. Get more news about Food Packaging,you can vist our website!
What if there were a way to package fresh foods that could extend their shelf life and eliminate microbial contamination?
Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have developed a biodegradable, antimicrobial food packaging system that does both.
“One of the biggest challenges in the food supply is the distribution and viability of the food items themselves,” said Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS and senior author of the paper. “We are harnessing advances in materials science and materials processing to increase both the longevity and freshness of the food items and doing so in a sustainable model.”
From the battlefield to the farm
The new food packing system has its roots in battlefield medicine. For more than a decade, Parker and his Disease Biophysics Group have been developing antimicrobial fibers for wound dressings. Their fiber manufacturing platform, known as Rotary Jet-Spinning (RJS), was designed specifically for that purpose.
RJS works likes a cotton candy machine — a liquid polymer solution is loaded into a reservoir and pushed out through a tiny opening by centrifugal force as the device spins. As the solution leaves the reservoir, the solvent evaporates, and the polymers solidify to form fibers, with controlled diameters ranging from microscale to nanoscale
The idea to translate the research from wound dressing to food packing was born of a collaboration with Philip Demokritou, the former co-Director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology (NanoCenter) at Harvard’s Chan School. The NanoCenter is a joint initiative between Harvard and Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.
“As it turned out, wound dressings have the same purpose, in some ways, as food packaging — sustaining tissues, protecting them against bacteria and fungi, and controlling moisture,” said Huibin Chang, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper.
To make the fibers food-safe, the team turned to a polymer known as pullulan. Pullulan is an edible, tasteless and naturally occurring polysaccharide commonly used in breath fresheners and mints. The researchers dissolved the pullulan polymer in water and mixed it with range of naturally derived antimicrobial agents, including thyme oil, nisin and citric acid. The solution is then spun in an RJS system and the fibers are deposited directly on a food item. The researchers demonstrated the technique by wrapping an avocado with pullulan fibers. The result resembles a fruit wrapped in spiderweb.
The research team compared their RJS wrapping to standard aluminum foil and found a substantial reduction of contamination by microorganisms, including E.coli, L. innocua (which causes listeria), and A. fumigatus (which can cause disease in people who are immunocompromised).
“The high surface-to-volume ratio of the coating makes it much easier to kill dangerous bacteria because more bacteria are coming into contact with the antimicrobial agents than in traditional packaging,” said John Zimmerman, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and co-author of the paper.
The team also demonstrated that their fiber wrapping increased the shelf life of avocado, a notoriously finicky fruit that can turn from ripe to rotten in a matter of hours. After 7 days on a lab bench, 90% of unwrapped avocados were rotten while only 50% of avocados wrapped in antimicrobial pullulan fibers rotted.